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Originally Posted by bethFromDayton
I've read lots of things that talk about how much water we "should" drink and how important it is--but is anyone aware of any research studies on the subject?
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Beth -- Yes, basically there is no research on the subject that demonstrates we all need to drink a bunch of water! Here's an article written from a research project at Dartmouth that tried to determine where that idea came from. At the bottom is a link to the actual research article (which is very accessible).
http://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/news/...02_water.shtml
The gist is that while we need to stay hydrated, most people get plenty of hydration from all the liquids and all the foods they ingest and there is not really a need to chug water. Caffeinated liquids count too!
That said, if you like water and find it helps you stay on plan, there's nothing wrong with that either.
And you definitely should drink something when you sweat!!
And one interesting quote from the link "Valtin thinks the notion [to drink water] may have started when the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council recommended approximately "1 milliliter of water for each calorie of food," which would amount to roughly two to two-and-a-half quarts per day (64 to 80 ounces). Although in its next sentence, the Board stated "most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods," that last sentence may have been missed, so that the recommendation was erroneously interpreted as how much water one should drink each day."